Frustrated that their clients aren't getting paid fast enough, lawyers for players entitled to a share of the league's billion-dollar class-action concussion settlement said the NFL needs help finding its wallet. Specifically, players claiming they are suffering from dementia have been slow to get paid because of a lengthy vetting process.

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According to a court filing via a report in The Washington Post, the players believe the NFL is trying to "rig the Settlement system," and the vast majority of those in line for a piece of the settlement first approved three years ago have yet to receive a single cent.

"The NFL seeks to rig the Settlement system. This is part of the League's DNA," according to the filing. "Historically, it has always engaged in scorched-earth litigation, and that is what the League is doing here, making it a Settlement in name only."

This piggybacks claims made in November that 10 months after the settlement finally was reached, only a small percentage of players were paid.

At the time, one lawyer who represents hundreds of players called the NFL's administrative process "flawed, cumbersome and moves at a glacial pace."

Five months later, it seems the trend continues.

Payments are administered by a third party, but the NFL has reportedly only paid six of the 1,113 players of the group claiming they have dementia-related brain impairments in the suit. Those players received a total of $4.85 million, according to the report, which is well short of the $72.3 million that was supposed to be paid out to some 430 players with dementia in the first year of the settlement.

To date, 183 players suffering from a multitude of medical issues beyond dementia have been paid a total of $150 million, though those numbers also came up short against projections of $423 million for 665 players in the first year of payouts. According to the Tribune, 143 more claims have been approved, but the $198 million they are due has not been paid out. Some cases are still subject to appeal.

"The notion the NFL is throwing sand in the gears and trying to block and obstruct, nothing can be further from the truth," a league source told the Washington Post.

A bevy of former NFLers are still waiting for their concussion settlement payments. (LM Otero/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The NFL does not control the payouts, but the league can veto claims. According to a league source, the NFL has not challenged the majority of those.

"Ninety-four percent of the claims rewards have not been challenged on appeal," the source told the newspaper. "In the overwhelming bulk of the awards made so far, the NFL has not filed an appeal. I just don't think the statistics lie and there's certainly been an emphasis on the few disappointed players and their representatives to try to suggest something — mainly that the league is obstructing the settlement process — when the actual facts are completely the opposite."

The reason for the delay in dementia payouts, according to Christopher Seeger, co-lead class counsel, is because of a glut of "suspicious claims" that have to be vetted.

"We are exceeding expectations in every respect except for one, and that's dementia," he said. "The only reason we're not — and we're starting to catch up — is because the court-appointed claims administrator had identified hundreds of suspicious claims. I think we have now worked through a lot of that and we're back on track."

Richmond-based settlement administrator BrownGreer is responsible for examining the cases and making payouts for the NFL. The company told the Washington Post that dementia cases take longer to process and 75 percent of the claims were missing necessary documentation and records.

"We do it as fast as we can, we do it as transparently as we can, we get all the input we can. But taking from March until December is actually pretty fast," founding partner Orran Brown told the newspaper. "Nothing is fast enough when you're injured or you have an injured family member and you want a result. It's never fast enough. We understand that, we get that. That's why we push."

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According to The Washington Post, almost 600 pending claims have been returned to players seeking more information and about half have been moved into a "black hole" where they appear buried by the system. More than half of the dementia cases have been audited, versus only 17 percent of the settlement's other claims.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement the "process of review and payment is becoming more streamlined and claims will be processed even more efficiently going forward."

"We are ensuring that legitimate claims are processed and paid in a timely way to those individuals and families who deserve these benefits," he said. "We believe that it is entirely appropriate to continue to oppose fraudulent and unsupported claims. No legitimate claim has been rejected."